Amazing Grace

One of the things that has been enlightening to me is that it is not until we experience things sometimes that we really do "get it." Lately I have been reading two blogs that really have touched my heart. I know that many of you read Bring The Rain along with me. I have recently stumbling upon My Charming Kids as well.

Both of these blogs are written by amazing Christian women who have experienced and are continuing to endure tremendous trials in their lives because of the love they have for their children. Bring the Rain is about a little baby that died four months ago. My Charming Kids is about a mom that is expecting a baby that may not live due to a serious heart defect.

One of the things I love about these blogs is the tremendous faith these beautiful women have, the overwhelming support people from all over the world are giving them, and how they are blessing others though their desire to share and write about their sorrows.


Why I call this post Amazing Grace is because I have learned so much about my own feelings and putting words to them about our experiences with Baby Halo. Every tear I shed for these ladies and their families is because I know I "get it " having been there, in fact, still being there with them. Their stories are different from ours but the sadness and sorrow are so familiar. The intensity of the NICU and the trauma of babies born with serious problems is a life changing experience that opens your eyes to a whole new realm of life unseen before. This type of love opens your heart to love you have never experienced before..not just for the child, but for your entire family, for God, and for everyone in general. It rubs you raw in ways and places you didn't know you had. It is truly a refiners fire with losses so severe and blessings of equal magnitude. It is like going from the grainy quality of a black and white TV to HDTV, or putting on a pair of glasses when you are visually impaired. Things just become more clear and crisp and sharp in more ways than one. This is the type of experience that allows you to really see your daughter and her husband in ways that leave you awe stricken and knowing they were chosen for this sacred role in mortality. You can literally see the ministering angels' support they receive daily to press forward. You always thought they were extremely special but now it is affirmed for you in countless new ways. That is an amazing grace in parenthood and eases the pain you feel for their trials as you stand by helplessly watching.

Lowell & Jen

When I read the above mentioned blogs we know we are not alone. It is easy to just go along in our lives not noticing others in a real way. I am grateful for the experiences that have helped me be less like that than I use to be. My biggest sorrows for little Hazel are the tests that she has ahead of her and how I wish she could have a perfect little body to support her life here on earth. My biggest joy in having this beautiful little granddaughter is in seeing her purity, her precious willingness to endure these things just to be alive, and the way she brings out the very best in her parents and her sisters~in all of us. You cannot be in the same room with her and not feel of her gigantically noble spirit and her proximity to God. In addition to those joys, the knowledge that she will one day be made whole according to God's promises.

The stretch is good for us and there has never been a baby more loved in all the world than this precious little angel. But there have been many, many, many that have been loved as much. And that is the amazing grace of these kind of experiences. Eyes that can see more, hearts that have a never ending capacity to love more. It is the amazing grace of feeling deeply for perfect strangers, praying for them, and knowing all too well that you understand another of the trials of life in a different way than you use to. It is knowing we are all connected~truly brothers and sisters in our journey through this veil of tears called mortality. And above all it is about gratitude for a Father in Heaven that loves us in ways we cannot even comprehend yet. And, lastly it humbles us to be constantly reminded...not my will but Thine be done. No one chooses these doors, but once inside, you look around and know you can do it with God's help and if your troubled heart can be still...you will know He is God.